A Much More Respectable Bird
by Malteaser
Summary: Written for a kinkmeme prompt: If you want to avoid having Child Services come down to talk to you, wait until your child has had his head lac sutured and is dispo'ed before pulling out your bottle of Wild Turkey at bedside and taking sips.


Bones came through the door with heavy footsteps and a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey. Jim looked up from his telemetrics essay and took in the sight of him, flushed red and gripping the bottleneck so hard it was a wonder it hadn't shattered.

"...did the ex call you at work?" Jim guessed

"No," Bones snapped shortly. "I wish she had, it would have been better than this."

He sat down heavily, sneering, and took a long pull of the whiskey. Jim set aside his PADD and turned to face him. "Can I have some of that?" he asked, gesturing to the bottle.

Bones snorted, "No. Believe me, you don't want to know where this has been."

Jim watched him take another drink. "Would now be a good time to let you know that I've been using your toothbrush?"

Bones pulled a face. "Jim!"

"Well, let me put it this way: will telling you that get me the good booze?"

Bones stared at him for a moment, then laughed bitterly. "You know how I got this?"

"Not a liquor store, I guess?" Jim said, confused. It wasn't like Bones to be this selfish with his drinks. It also wasn't like him to be this...sloppy. He was always blunt: he either told you what was happening or told you where to get off.

"Not even close. I got this," he waved the bottle in the air. "Off of the guardian of a patient whose skull I had to knit back together. Bastard didn't even wait until I'd given the prognosis."

Jim felt a bit like he'd been punched in the gut. "What?" he heard himself say.

"Oh, so it's immediately apparent to you what's going on but my supervisor still wants more evidence?" Bones scowled, and chugged the remainder of the whiskey in one go. "At least he changed his tune after we found the boot print right over the kid's goddamn kidneys."

"Motherfucker," Jim croaked. Bones nodded.

"I," Jim started, then stood abruptly. "Am really sorry if I puke on something of yours," he finished, before staggering in the direction of the bathroom. He managed to vomit on the tile instead the carpet.

* * *

In retrospect, he's pretty certain that between his brother taking off and the ring of finger-shaped bruises around his throat questions would have been asked anyway. But he'd always remember it as the whiskey bottle that had done it.

Frank had sat there, smug and smirking as he sipped his drink, chatting amiably with the nurse: yeah, he fell down the stairs again, one of the steps must have something wrong with it, next time Winona came home he'd get her to take a look at it... he didn't even notice, the way the nurse's eyes were always either on Jim or on the bottle. Jim had noticed, but hadn't made the connection until the next day, when his mother arrived.

She'd sat with him for a while, asking the doctors questions and receiving answers in a voice that was low enough that he could pretend not to hear. When Frank had come in, she'd stood, and for a moment it looked like she was going to kiss him. Then she kneed him in the groin and threw him bodily into the corridor.

Probably not the smartest thing to do, but it had cemented the fact that, for all her faults and absences, he had a pretty cool mother.

* * *

"Blech." He grimaced at the taste of bile. Bones placed a warm hand on his back, and he groaned, dropping his head between his shoulders.

"Are you going to throw up again?" Bones asked. Jim shook his head.

"Okay," the doctor replied, moving Jim so that he was leaning against the closet doors. Jim watched him step carefully over the puddle of sick, and closed his eyes when he heard the faucet turn on. When he next opened them, Bones was standing in front of his, offering a glass of water.

Jim took it, and swallowed several sips before speaking. "Thanks. And sorry about the mess. I'll clean it up." He waited a bit before adding: "I guess dinner didn't really agree with me."

"Oh?" Bones asked, sitting down opposite of him. He was trying his best to look professionally disinterested, and in his drunken state failing to look anything less than skeptical.

"Yeah," Jim replied. "You know- clumsy me. The food was probably off and I didn't even notice."

Bones' eyebrow twitched with the suppressed need to raise itself upwards. "Clumsy, huh?"

"Yeah. It was worse, when I was a kid. I was always- uh- walking into doors and tripping down the stairs. And... stuff."

"You walked into doors?"

"Yeah. You know, it was a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. They didn't open automatically. And, like I said, I was clumsy. I even fell out of the hayloft once."

That one was even true, sort of. Frank had pushed him backwards, and he'd stumbled over a crate and down the open trapdoor.

"That must have hurt."

"Like hell." Trashing the car had been worth it, though.

Bones looked at him, waiting. Jim thought about telling him more- more that was truthfully instead of a thinly-veiled lie- and then thought about it some more. That was the other thing about Bones: listening to him might not be all that fun at times, but he was great to talk to. You could tell him anything and it would be alright; or you could tell him nothing at all, and that would be okay too.

"I-I'm going to clean up the puke," Jim said, standing up. No more tonight, but another time, maybe. Probably. Most likely before the year was even out, if he was being realistic.

"CPS is putting the kid into foster care; the bastard's going to jail. The paper work should all be through by this time tomorrow," Bones said, not getting up.

Jim paused over the wet vac, then busied himself with smoothing out invisible gnarls in the cord. "They'll be fine, then. It'll take time, but they'll be okay."

"You sure?"

"Absolutely."


End file.
